A Profile of Disciplinary Offenses in Québec's Accounting Profession

ABSTRACT

This study presents a cluster‐based profiling of ethical violations among Chartered Professional Accountants (CPAs) in Québec, using 432 guilty verdicts issued by the CPA Québec Order between 2012 and 2023. Moving beyond descriptive statistics, the research employs Gower distance and k‐medoids cluster analysis to identify meaningful patterns of misconduct. Guided by Jones's moral intensity model, the analysis reveals four distinct offender profiles: Negligents (procedural lapses, moderate moral intensity), Fraudsters (high‐severity infractions, such as embezzlement and fraud), Non‐Compliants (administrative or credential‐related breaches), and Obstructers (resistance to oversight and frequent repeat offenses). Each profile is associated with differing professional characteristics, ethical severity, and likelihood of reoffending. These findings challenge the notion of ethical misconduct as a monolithic phenomenon and demonstrate the value of statistical clustering in regulatory research. The results support a differentiated approach to ethics enforcement and training, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions tailored to offender profiles. This study offers a novel empirical contribution to accounting ethics and professional discipline, with implications for regulation, education, and future research.